Scripture: Judges11:29-39a
If you remember our passage from 3 weeks ago, you’ll
remember that the half-brothers of Jephthah ejected him from the family because
of his parentage, but when they finally realized that they needed his help,
they invited him to rejoin the family, and to lead the army into battle.
We had no direct indication that Jephthah had been
chosen by the LORD to be a judge of Israel, but the process of restoration
began with the family, and that will always be a first step in forgiveness – the
forgiveness that we must offer to each other.
In Matthew 5:23-24,
Jesus told the crowd that before you present a gift to God at His altar, go and
forgive your brother for the wrong that you remember he has done against
you.
When Jephthah accepted his brother’s invitation to
return to relationship with them, he was forgiving his brothers for their sin
against him. And this sets the stage for
God’s work through this new judge. But
as we will discover today, even the servant that the LORD
God Almighty chooses, isn’t always in tune with his Jehovah God.
Read Judges 11:29-31
“the Spirit of the LORD
came on Jephthah”. The
power of God’s Spirit is the source of all wisdom, the basis for all strength, and
the truth that we receive that sets us upon the way of God’s plan. But we also have to understand that when our
heart isn’t yet in tune with God’s way, the Spirit that God sends our way is
not necessarily one of power, but rather one of brokenness, divisiveness, and
limited ability.
What is the evidence that this is the Spirit that
has come on Jephthah? First, he is only
allowed to gather warriors from two small family tribes, and the majority of
the military might of Israel goes wanting.
Second, the trust that he offers to Jehovah is more of a deal than a
gift – “if you do this”, “then I will do that”.
He sets a condition on God, which is never a good idea, I might add!
This is similar to those soldiers who find
themselves in a real sticky situation in combat, and tell the LORD
that if He will get them out of this mess, that they will do something for Him,
like attending worship every week for the rest of their life, or promise to
tithe on all that they earn when they get home, or some other arrangement that
they would never have agreed to otherwise.
This isn’t the kind of gift that God will ever honor. And what does Jephthah offer? If you give me victory in battle, I’ll gladly
give you a burnt offering of the first thing I see when I return to my
home. Again, it’s ambiguous, and not
quite honest! After all, what if an unclean
animal, such as a rat, or an injured sheep, was the first thing he saw – would that
be an acceptable sacrifice? Hardly!
Read Judges 11:32-35
The battle rages, and the LORD
gives the enemy over to the army of Israel under the command of Jephthah. Have you heard that God is faithful? Even when we don’t fully know what we are
asking for? Absolutely! Because sometimes He uses the situation to teach
us a new lesson about His grace and authority!
And this is going to be a hard lesson for our judge to learn.
And what is this lesson all about? Its about trust. When we ask another person to do something
for us, it nearly always involves a “tit-for-tat” – an arrangement in which if
you do one thing for me, then I’ll do something for you. That’s a contract arrangement. But this isn’t God’s way! The only thing the LORD
desires from us is faithfulness in our relationship with Him, and obedience
when His word calls us to a task in His name.
This is known as a covenant. We
give each other gifts without any quid pro quo, without any reciprocal requirement.
Jephthah’s offer is a contract of sorts, one in which
he would never have intentionally made, while all that God desires from us is
honor and thanksgiving for all that He has already done for us – “while we
were still sinners”, so to speak (Romans 5:8-9). This is an important lesson for each of us on
this Communion Sunday.
Perhaps the lesson for us today is that God gave His
One and Only Son so that we would no longer have to make deals with Him – that we
could just give Him our trust and love and obedience, and know that that is
enough!
Read Judges 11:36-39a
The daughter seems to have more trust in Jehovah God
than her father does! Jephthah claims
that the girl has made him the victim, and he blames her for causing his
downfall! But how does the girl take the
news? She accepts the vow that has been
made, and only asks to spend some time with her friends before the vow must be fulfilled.
Interestingly, this story stands in sharp contrast
to the one of Abraham and his son Isaac, where it was God who asked for the
sacrifice, and not Abraham. Both Abraham
and Isaac would be the faithful ones, and it would be the LORD
who would change the sacrifice, and not Abraham who, unlike Jephthah, wouldn’t put
the blame on everyone else for the calamity that was apparently about to fall on
his family.
Abraham and Jephthah each had their own lessons to
learn, just as each of us have our own God given lessons. Both of those men learned well – Abraham with
a huge Godly blessing, and Jephthah with a great personal loss. But the question for each of us is what does
it take for us to learn Godly ways, and what will our response be?
May each of us gain a greater trust and acceptance
of Godly ways, and may each receive the gift of deep and faithful obedience in
reply to God’s justification and forgiveness through the giving of His One
and Only Son.
